Status of Women Committee on April 7th, 2014

[Linda Savoie]

I would not be able to give you specifics on that, I'm afraid.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

I'm not talking about equal pay for work of equal value. I'm talking about men and women in the same job.

[Linda Savoie]

We know, for instance, that in the health sectors, women in the same jobs are earning less than men. We know that entry salaries continue to be lower for women than for men, although there are some definite age bracket differences and the younger generation is experiencing a smaller gap than women my age, for instance.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

You mean if a hospital is hiring nurses, they might offer female nurses less than a male nurse, for example?

[Linda Savoie]

I don't believe that's the case. I believe that things are looked at in a more holistic manner than one specific hospital that probably has labour agreements.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Are there any other job classifications where women are hired at a lower pay level for the same job?

[Sébastien Goupil]

We've heard in conversations we have had with some stakeholders, because this is an issue that often comes up, sometimes you're going to see differences even in some more well-paying areas. You're going to see differences between women and men because women are known not to negotiate the same way as men. For example, women entering in business may start with $5,000 less a year compared to a male colleague because they don't negotiate the same salary arrangement with their employer.

So it's a complex issue. It covers a wide span.... If you're looking, Linda was pointing at differences within the health occupation, and this is something that is noticed. Women in this occupational sector tend to make less than men. We have to see where men are located within the sector. But if we compare it to other sectors, it's interesting, I had in one of my notes that women in natural and applied science occupations earn 99¢ for every dollar that men earn. So there are those areas that probably we can learn from as well and draw some best practices. This is part of the dialogue we're trying to—

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Did you say life sciences?

[Sébastien Goupil]

In natural and applied sciences....

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much. Great discussion.

Ms. Sellah, you have five minutes.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First off, I'd like to thank all our witnesses for being with us today.

My questions are for Ms. Savoie since she is in charge of programs.

I know that Status of Women Canada encourages greater leadership by women in decision-making roles. I have some questions in that connection. How many of your programs are aimed at the economic security and prosperity of Canadian immigrant women? Could you describe one such program and tell us what it entails? I'd like you to give us a concrete example to help us understand how these programs are built and evaluated, as well as what their outcomes are.

[Linda Savoie]

Mechanisms certainly exist outside Status of Women Canada. But in terms of our department specifically, I can tell you about the call for proposals we issued last year for projects that supported the economic prosperity of immigrant women.

We sought to identify opportunities that would improve the conditions of immigrant women, in collaboration with the community, employers, educational stakeholders and immigrant women.

We implemented seven projects. Some are focused on immigrant women in rural settings, and others on immigrant women in urban areas. Other projects are aimed at building partnerships between chambers of commerce and immigrant women's groups, who weren't necessarily aware of the programs offered by the chambers of commerce. A number of approaches were adopted. In fact, we don't apply a single approach to all seven projects, but we hope to learn valuable lessons going forward.

We work on a project, not program, basis. Officials from Citizenship and Immigration Canada and Employment and Social Development Canada could, no doubt, tell you about other mechanisms within the federal government.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you.

How much time do I have left, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

A minute and fifteen seconds.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Very well.

The rest of my questions are for Ms. Hawa.

How much funding goes to the BWIT program? How do you spend the money? Do you need more funding so the program can provide greater support to Canada's women entrepreneurs? Do you have methods for evaluating how successful the program is? How does that evaluation work and who is in charge?

[Zoe Hawa]

Okay, it's a multi-faceted question.

[John Gartke]

If you want to start, I'll come up with the last one.

[Zoe Hawa]

In terms of our budget, we run approximately $75,000 annually. This is for 2.25 full-time employees who are in the program.

We definitely use the money to develop trade missions. We work with our provincial counterparts to get as many women entrepreneurs who may be interested in trade missions as we can, and then we take them down to WBENC. When we're there, we work with one of our consulates or posts in that region to try to get business matchmaking, which means we may hire a service provider to help the businesswomen actually connect with Fortune 500 companies, so they can meet them and hopefully secure contracts.

We also host, for instance, sessions for these women entrepreneurs. Where we spend our money is very much related to our events like the trade missions. We also host store tours as well as networking receptions. So it's geared towards using the money as cost effectively as possible to get many women entrepreneurs onto that international stage and help them meet with the company that is the best fit, so that they can secure their contracts with them.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much. That's all the time we have, Ms. Sellah.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair, but we didn't get an answer on how it's evaluated.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

I'd like to thank all the witnesses, who helped get the committee's study off to a great start. They gave us some very useful information that committee members can share with their constituents and women entrepreneurs.

If you have more information in response to the last question, you can send it to the committee through the clerk.

We will now suspend the meeting long enough to move in camera, and then, we will continue with the second half of our meeting.

[Proceedings continue in camera]